Charlotte, North Carolina: President Barack Obama took to the road Friday to push his administration's plans to create jobs, a crucial campaign issue for Democrats as they look toward November's congressional elections.
Obama spoke Friday at a North Carolina company that has hired new workers and expanded its operations with grants from the economic stimulus programme. Obama's team wants to marry much-needed job creation with the politically sour stimulus, hoping that will help Democrats gain favour with voters after a bruising, yearlong battle with Republicans over health care.
The president hailed a new government report showing the largest job creation number in nearly three years. "We are beginning to turn the corner," he told employees of a manufacturing plant that received government stimulus money.
Obama sought to claim part of the credit for the 162,000 jobs added in March, saying that steps taken by his administration, while sometimes unpopular, "have broken this slide and are helping us to climb out of this recession."
Census Bureau positions
Still, the jobs report was a mixed one. Of the 162,000 new jobs in March, 48,000 were government-created Census Bureau positions. And because the new jobs weren't enough to offset increasing numbers entering the job market, the unemployment rate remained unchanged at 9.7 per cent, where it has been stuck since January, after surging to 10.1 per cent last October.
More than 40 per cent of those without jobs have been unemployed for more than six months. Since the recession began in December 2007, some 8.4 million have lost their jobs.
"We shouldn't underestimate the difficulties we face," Obama said. "We're still going through a hard time."
Obama told workers at the plant, which makes high-tech battery components, that his aggressive if unpopular policies helped add jobs. He spoke at the Celgard LLC factory, which received a $49 million (Dh179.8 million) grant from the US Energy Department last August.
The president said the grant was creating nearly 300 direct jobs for the company and more than 1,000 jobs for its contractors and suppliers. He also pledged that a new emphasis on oil and gas drilling will not undercut alternative energy work.
"I've often had to report bad news during the course of this year as the recession wreaked havoc on people's lives," Obama said. "Today is an encouraging day. The economy actually produced a substantial number of jobs instead of losing a substantial number of jobs."
- 9.7% Current unemployment rate according to latest report
- 40% people who have been unemployed for more than six months
- 8.4m number who have lost jobs since December 2007